SFFILM Announces $543K in Grants for Filmmakers

SFFILM has awarded $543,000 in grants to film filmmakers from around the world. The funding, announced today, will support over 30 projects ranging from short films to full-length documentaries.

While the artistic development grants support filmmakers as far away as Haiti, Honduras, Ghana and Guatemala, a handful of recipients have Bay Area ties — and are telling Bay Area stories. San Francisco-based Sahand Nikoukar, Berkeley filmmaker Elivia Shaw, and Stanford professor Jamie Meltzer, as well as San Francisco born-and-raised artist Róisín Isner and Richmond’s own Vicky Ponce are all SFFILM grantees.

Ponce says the funds will assist her with post-production for her comical coming-of-age film, Juan Po and The Last Day of School.

The story, written by Ponce, centers on a 13-year-old boy who wants to impress his teacher, so he gets an in-home perm done by his pops — and then the teenager has to manage the hairy situation that comes thereafter.

“It’s about Sierreño music, broccoli haircuts and all the things all the kids are into,” says Ponce during a phone call. A filmmaker whose past works explore the awkward stages of youth and the importance of family connections, she says this feel-good tale is both universal and very grounded in the Bay Area.

She says having a good story, one that will capture audiences, is just part of the equation when she’s looking for funding these days. After major cuts to national arts funding this year, “the pot has become smaller,” Ponce says. “People are applying for the same things.”

Her saving grace as a full-time filmmaker has come from local grants like the one she just received, the SFFILM/San Francisco Conservatory of Music Sound and Cinema Fellowship, which specifically helps develop an original soundtrack.

“It’s exciting get to save $6,000–$10,000, not having to worry about someone creating my post-music,” says Ponce. “It’s exciting that there are still some grants out there for Bay Area artists.”